I’m not a fan of AI well being and health options. Not solely do they regurgitate Captain Obvious-level summaries of what you simply did, however the “insights” are so generalized {that a} Google search is commonly extra useful. So it was with nice skepticism that I walked right into a demo to study Fitbit’s forthcoming AI-powered private well being coach. To my shock, I left cautiously inquisitive about the place Fitbit goes.
“We actually need to transfer in the direction of this world of teaching,” Andy Abramson, Google’s director of product administration for Fitbit and Well being, says throughout a demo of the characteristic. Skilled athletes have an entire staff of individuals serving to to craft their health regimens. “We requested ourselves, what if everybody may have one thing like this?”
On paper, Fitbit’s well being coach isn’t providing something a dozen different well being and health tech firms haven’t already promised. It’s a chatbot constructed off Gemini that lives in a spiffy, redesigned Fitbit app (now with darkish mode!). Every week, it builds customized routines with detailed exercises and exercise targets primarily based in your private well being objectives. These exercises will alter primarily based in your real-time information. So if in case you have a crap evening of sleep, the subsequent day it’ll tweak your instructed exercise to compensate. You may also proactively inform the bot anytime you’re sick, injured, or have a brand new purpose, and it’ll take these issues into consideration. If it notices traits in your information, like improved sleep high quality, it’ll flag them to you.
Fitbit’s coach is an try to handle the age-old drawback of wearables offering customers means an excessive amount of information with out the suitable context. What’s been sorely disappointing from opponents to this point has been the execution. Typically, it looks like AI has been tacked on as a gimmick to please buyers reasonably than developed as a instrument that may present genuinely useful insights.
The place Google and Fitbit’s take feels completely different is that the product has been utterly but cautiously overhauled across the idea.
“It’s not identical to a brand new coat of paint. It’s not simply AI bolted on. We’ve actually requested the query of: How can we put the AI coach in each a part of the app?” Abramson says.
Fitbit’s coach actually is prominently baked into each nook of the brand new app. The At this time tab, which shows your day by day metrics, has been reorganized right into a smaller information dashboard with an AI chatbox proper beneath. While you scroll down, there are blocks calling out insights primarily based on metrics like sleep. Beneath every are prompts to have interaction with the coach additional on every matter.
In our demo, Abramson exhibits me how the AI coach interprets his personal private information. Some elements appear to be the identical outdated regurgitated ebook experiences. In others, nonetheless, I can see glimpses of the promise. For instance, Abramson is ready to inform the AI that his overarching purpose is to get higher at path operating, however that he’s touring and has restricted entry to gear. In response, the app instructed a exercise incorporating the Peloton bike he has entry to on the resort. The coach additionally notes that due to jetlag, Abramson’s had much less sleep the evening earlier than however with fewer interruptions in comparison with his standard. It then asks to verify in on his power ranges for the day.
The important thing right here is real-time adjustment primarily based on dialog. Abramson relays one other story of a staffer who damage their finger and requested the coach to take away power exercises in the interim. Every week later, the coach checked in asking whether or not the finger had healed and if it was okay so as to add these exercises again in.
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In comparison with different health AI I’ve examined, this demo coach can be pretty chatty. In Abramson’s logs, there are prolonged blocks of textual content peppered with metrics and information breakdowns. Google VP of Fitbit and Well being Rishi Chandra says that is intentional.
“The LLM can summarize it if you need three strains, however will probably be so generic that it doesn’t really feel prefer it’s telling you something,” Chandra says. The staff explored shorter summaries, however early testers advised them that they weren’t in any respect useful. “It is a balancing act we now have proper now. We’ve proper now listed on getting extra depth for customers after which determining easy methods to trim that.”
Fitbit can be transferring away from day by day objectives towards weekly ones like an precise private coach would do. “A coach wouldn’t say day-after-day it’s important to get this actual 10,000 steps or no matter it is likely to be,” Chandra says.
Cardio Load, launched final yr, was initially designed as a day by day purpose for folks to know what they wanted to do to enhance their cardiovascular well being. Going ahead, this characteristic can be a weekly goal. Sleep insights may even be primarily based in your weekly and long-term patterns, and the coach may even counsel adjusted schedules if it finds your sleep debt is extreme or if it determines you want additional relaxation from a tough exercise.
That is only a sensible change that permits for larger flexibility. A day by day cardio goal doesn’t work when you’re caught on a 14-hour aircraft journey and all you possibly can handle is a chill yoga session while you arrive at your resort. The change lets customers and the app account for all times getting in the way in which.
A part of making this all work is ensuring Fitbit’s app really has the info it wants. The sleep monitoring algorithm, which processes information from Fitbits and Pixel Watches, is meant to be extra correct. The Pixel Watch 4 can be including retroactive exercise logging so that you simply by no means lose credit score in case you overlook to log a stroll or a exercise. Customers will be capable to prepare the AI to extra precisely acknowledge sure actions over time via tags, too. The AI coach may even be capable to absorb information logged from third-party apps via Well being Join and HealthKit — so that you don’t have to do all of the native exercises within the Fitbit app. And, as a result of Fitbit gadgets are platform-agnostic, technically the coach can work with iOS too. The purpose is to change into extra of a related AI well being hub, ultimately branching from sleep and health towards different facets like vitamin and psychological well being.
After all, something is feasible when a characteristic is in improvement. When the characteristic really launches in October, it’ll be an opt-in preview for Fitbit Premium customers solely. (One perk is that the preview isn’t restricted to the Pixel Watch 4; it’ll work with any Pixel Watch or Fitbit {hardware}.) There are additionally nonetheless a number of considerations I’ve. LLMs are restricted, are susceptible to hallucination, and will teeter dangerously on the road between medical tech and wellness. Information privateness is one more can of worms.
However having examined a dozen lackluster AI well being coaches, this feels closest to reaching the platonic supreme that I’ve seen but.
